Tom was concerned about the upcoming test, so he shifted his attention to the practice of cultivation.
The end goal of a cultivator, he learned, was to overcome the strictures of a mortal life and live forever. But based on the introduction in the jade slip, simply having a spiritual foundation, referred to as a cultivation base, did not immediately increase one's lifespan. The way to achieve a longer life was rooted in the depth of a cultivator's spiritual wellspring, which represents the strength of their cultivation base, and is defined by the type of immortal technique they cultivate.
It was also possible to utilize certain mortal techniques, pill formulas and talismans to increase the lifespan of an ordinary mortal. Cultivators often did so for their loved ones, who may lack the talent to develop an initial cultivation base, and are therefore barred from ever pursuing the path to immortality.
Tom briefly considered helping his friends and family live longer, but quickly realized that though he was not aware of it at the time, he had actually spent a hundred years confined to a pocket realm. It was practically a certainty that everyone he knew had already died from old age if not some other deadly event brought about by the continuance of life.
The years he had spent in solitude had numbed Tom's sense of time, and eliminated any hope he had of ever returning to Planet Earth. So, none of these realizations affected his mood. He simply moved on, and focused on understanding the key components of cultivation.
Fundamentally, cultivating is a deliberate way of increasing the absorption of the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, which is, in its most basic form, a type of qi.
Ordinary qi is unseen, and cannot normally be detected by mortals, since it takes on many of the properties of air, including the ability to sustain all kinds of life, even if a person does not necessarily feel its presence.
The influx of spiritual energy is controlled by a cultivation base. However, the process of assimilating qi must be gradual, so that the retained energy can be filtered and turned into a natural part of the cultivator's qi flow. In that regard, an individual's qi flow bears many similarities to the human circulatory system, and constitutes its own body of spirit pores and spirit veins, collectively known as qi pathways. They lie superimposed over their fleshly counterpart.
The flow of qi in a cultivator's qi pathways can, to some extent, replace the normal work of bodily functions, and negate the need to breathe, eat or sleep.
The centrifugal point of a cultivator's qi pathways, lies in the dantian: an invisible, pill-shaped vortex that rests below the navel. In animals that cultivate – which are generally divided into spirit companions whose origins are unknown, and beasts that are born in the wild; their dantian is actually corporeal, having crystallized to form a physical core.
Cultivators on Planet Therion always begin their cultivation with the aim of developing a spirit core, to mimic the power of beasts. They start out in the Qi Condensation stage, where their goal is to absorb as much qi as possible, to eventually condense a spirit core and break into the Core Formation stage.
There are cultivation stages beyond Core Formation, but the details set forth in Tom's jade slip only hinted at greater prospects.
The Qi Condensation stage is further divided into nine distinct levels, with bottlenecks in the third, six and ninth levels. When cultivators reach a bottleneck, they face extraordinary difficulty, which may lead to a halt in their progress, and stifle their hope of ever reaching a higher cultivation stage.
Having grasped the preliminary concepts, Tom went on to inscribe the foundational technique of the Gray Gemel Clan into his memory.
It was called the Five Petals Dance, and involved a series of expressive moves. To be more precise, they were a combination of steps that ended in foot strikes. These exercises were designed to stimulate qi flow and hasten the process of absorbing the spiritual energy that exists in nature.
Although these techniques were intended for use in battle, Tom doubted their efficacy in actual combat.
Such wide, sweeping steps would be easy to disrupt. Moreover, anyone familiar with the technique would be able to see through the pattern and dodge the oncoming strike with relative ease.
Since he had no choice in the matter, and nothing else to occupy his time, Tom decided that he might as well get started.
He jumped to his feet, took off his sweats, so that only his white tank top and black boxers remained. Then, he selected a patch of grass to practice his first moveset. To begin, Tom chose what he thought was the most simple and most amusing of all the foot strikes: the Mud Heel Kick. It was the third item in the five-part series and featured a wide stance, with a bent back, similar to the crouching position a sumo wrestler would take just before a match.
He placed a hand on each corresponding thigh, lifted his right foot high into the air, and stomped down, utilizing his arm to increase the weight of the kick. He then repeated this step with his left foot. For a short while, he had a good deal of fun stomping left and right, thankful that no one was around to see him behave so childishly. Half an hour later, he had broken into a sweat, and lost most of his enthusiasm.
He had never been predisposed towards physical activity, so maintaining his concentration for an extended period of time proved challenging. He took a break for what felt like ten minutes, and resumed his practice session.
When his work ran into the three hour mark, even with intermittent breaks, he still felt too tired to continue, and decided to pause for some well-deserved rest.
Drenched in sweat, and wary of his own stench, he took what remained of his clothing and hung them on the willow tree to dry in the sun. To his relief, his body did not emit any odor, and despite how damp it was from sweat, his clothes didn't stink.
As his tank top and boxers dried, the sweat in his steaming undergarments congealed into wisps of smoke that floated up into the air, and left a fist-sized cloud in the sky. Such a tiny puff would normally not be visible, but in the spotless canvas of his pocket realm, it stuck out, like a black dot on a sheet of white paper.
"Is that a sweat cloud?" He wondered, and laughed out loud.
The monotony of a stable environment had heightened his boredom. So this small change in his surroundings excited him.
Tom shifted his goal from mastering the Five Petals Dance to literally filling the sky with clouds.
He selected another technique, the fourth in the series, called the Lightning Whip Kick. It had a dazzling name, but was in fact a ridiculous move that involved gathering enough momentum to perform a spinning drop kick.
With each attempt he landed on either his back or his belly. Soon afterward, his spine ached and his stomach was bruised, so he switched to the Water Sling Kick, which was the first in its series.
It was somewhat more complicated than the kicks he learned previously, given Tom's lack of familiarity with martial arts. He tried what seemed like an inverted roundhouse kick, by pivoting on the heel of his right foot and snapping his leg upward, pulling himself forward. In the beginning, he kept leaning back as he swung his leg and occasionally fell to the side, but with a few hours of practice, he was able to coordinate the sudden pivot and the upward snap, although he often lost his balance when returning to a standing position.
Then he practiced the more straightforward Fire Shot Kick, which was the second in the series, and effectively, a flying side kick. His biggest challenge there was getting his body off the ground. There wasn't enough strength in his calves to push him into the air. His poor flexibility didn't help either, and made raising his knee above his chest and stretching it outward, much more difficult.
Last on his list, was the Wind Dash Kick. It was less a kick and more a sliding maneuver that could be used to sweep the legs of an opponent. Despite how soft the grass was, a handful of tries was all it took to scrape his knees, tear his shins and bloody the soles of his feet. So, he decided to forgo this move entirely in favor of the other, flashier techniques of the Five Petals Dance.
The first day that he spent practicing taught him two things: the instructions he received were inadequate and served more as a general indication of the required pattern of movement; and, at his current level, none of the magical effects he expected to see would actually materialize.
According to the words and images that Ah Wei had imbued into the jade slip, the Five Petals Dance was a technique to harness the power of the natural elements – which were distinct types of qi – in the form of a decisive kick.
Nevertheless, he achieved his aim of coagulating clouds of diffused qi into the air, and doing so brought a gleeful smile to his lips.
The days wore on as he practiced the Water Sling, Fire Shot, Mud Heel, and Lightning Whip kicks. He didn't dare put in the time to better his Wind Dash Kick, fearing that the unavoidable injuries it incurred would hamper his training.
He noticed that if he dried his clothes in the same spot, the wisps of white smoke would rise and conjoin with a single cloud above, so from time to time he let his undergarments dry in a different location, until a slew of puffy, white clouds peppered the air.
The second week arrived in a flash.
Tom had no way of discerning the passage of time, and was taken completely by surprise when a familiar sensation tugged at the back of his mind.
He closed his eyes and granted Ah Wei permission to enter his pocket realm. He wanted to ask why Ah Wei could not come and go as he pleased, but as the old man emerged from a portal and glided down to where Tom stood in a clearing, he felt too nervous to speak.
Shafts of light streamed through the gaps in the clouds that hung overhead.
Tom gulped down his fear and assumed the posture of a junior addressing his senior, having gleaned a degree of etiquette from the more circumspect teachings he had found in the jade slip. He cupped his hands and dipped his head.
To his surprise, Ah Wei did the same, which was a show of mutual respect.
"It is time," he said under his breath. A wrinkled hand rifled through a gray robe to produce a mustard seed bag. He smacked its underside. A wooden puppet flew out and lay sprawled on the patch of grass between them.
It was little more than a set of bamboo tubes, anatomically correct, and strung together by tiny threads. When it suddenly got up, and assumed a height of roughly one meter and a half, loudly clanking its frame in the process, Tom leapt back, his expression a mixture of fear and curiosity.
The puppet ambled to and fro, stretching about to loosen its joints, in a way that seemed remarkably human. However, its beaded eyes were devoid of life, and its facial features were merely splashes of paint. Its lacquered skin glistened whenever it came in contact with light, and while it didn't exactly smile, Tom was sure that its placid grin, downward slanting eyebrows, and ruddy cheeks, were all signs of malcontent.
After a moment of consideration, Ah Wei spoke again, his tone grave, as if troubled by his own words.
"This combat puppet will be your opponent. Your task will be to survive the next 30 breathes of time."
The old man apparently had nothing more to say, and before Tom could ask any questions, the wooden puppet suddenly lunged at him.